str.strip

Removes spaces (or other characters) from both ends of a string.

Synopsis

text.strip()
text.strip(characters)

Description

Users often type a stray space before or after an answer. strip removes spaces, tabs and new lines from the start and end.

lstrip removes from the left end only, and rstrip from the right end only.

Parameters

Return value

A new str.

Example

name = "  Ada  "
print(f"[{name}]")
print(f"[{name.strip()}]")
print("--hi--".strip("-"))

It prints:

[  Ada  ]
[Ada]
hi

Common mistake

print("a b c".strip())

It prints:

a b c

strip only touches the two ends. To remove every space, use replace(" ", "").

See also

str.replace, str.lower, str.split

str.strip in the Python documentation